"It's a little self indulgent..." - My mom"After I read a sentence, I get mad at myself for caring what you're doing." -Karl Dusen

Friday, May 20, 2011

Finally done with the track

I got home late after the Maryland meet, and I just wasn't up to running in the morning, so after work I did an easy 12 on the McLean trail I am continuing to explore. It started to storm toward the end of my third trip to the park in a week, and the rapidly-growing vegetation made the path a little difficult, but it was generally a nice run.

Saturday morning I planned to do a p-word, but when I started, the combination of the heat, humidity and my fatigue ganged up on me and I stopped less than a mile into it. I did an easy three around my neighborhood. Later that day, while at the Canaan Valley resort, I got another eight in while everyone else went on a hike. The trails I hit for the first half were alright, but a little rockier than I would have preferred.

The next morning, Klim, Bain and Murph and I went out for some more, finding some grass trails that could only have been mowed for a cross country course, in my estimation.

Monday afternoon I went out to McLean for a workout. I planned on 8x1000, and got right to work- 3:01, 3:01, 3:01. Intestinal distress interrupted the rest.

On Tuesday I got back to what I enjoy- running along Williamsburg and Military roads. I dealt with a gigantic pack of bicyclists for the first eight miles of my 13. I averaged 5:51s for the first half, and really had fun running.

Wednesday we did 400s at practice, I went 67, 69, 68, 68, 66, 66, 64, then, to preserve the rhyme scheme, could do no more.

Thursday I can't really remember for the life of me where I ran, but I am pretty sure I doubled and run Westmoreland in the afternoon.

Friday I just did an easy six up and back on the Metropolitan Branch Trail.

Saturday morning I did three miles around the Greenwich Mile as a pre-race, then rode in a van up to Swarthmore for my last track meet of the season. My early season goal was to be in sub-15 shape by then, and have run at least sub-15:20, but I had not gotten to that point. In fact, I had only run 15:42, 15:48, 16:00 and 15:43. Pair that lack of confidence with how awful I felt, and sub 16 alone was going to be a challenge. It was raining when we got there and the meet was already behind schedule. The men's 5k had nearly 80 entrants, so we were divided among three heats. That actually ended out working well, because I could watch Michelle run the women's 5 before and warm up while cheering for Karl, Wiggy and Sloane. Dangerous Dave was in the second heat, and I missed a few of his laps. Murph and I lined up for the third heat around 10 pm, and I was seeded behind some old dude dressed in some ridiculous green getup and a doo rag. Good god...

When the gun went off, I settled in quickly in lane one and saw pretty much the entire field ahead of me, even though we came through 200 in 37. I wanted to take the race in chunks of 800, so I sat behind a pack for a while. We came through the first lap in 76, then 78. That wasn't going to fly with Chaz...I moved ahead and came through the next lap in 72, then 74 for an even 5:00. Rather than make those discrete and arbitrary moves, I decided to just keep running the same pace and pass people whenever I pleased. I caught up with Murph around the two mile, which I hit in 10:00, and kept going, my eyes on a LaSalle guy. Before I knew it, the race was over, I had run 15:36 and nobody had passed me. It was a pretty boring race, and I never really felt I was racing, per se. After a protracted cooldown, we headed back and I stayed over at the Wigloo. I ran a pretty easy but humid 10.5 miles with Sloane and Wiggy in the morning, then did another 6.5 in the evening.

Monday I did 12 miles in the mud and rain-saturated trails around Pimmit Run Creek, slipping once, bruising my knee and whacking the heck out of my right shoulder.

Tuesday I averaged 6:28 pace for 12+ miles around Fairview Park.

Wednesday I did the warmup for the workout, didn't feel like running fast, jogged around for a while and stopped. I haven't run since. I've had a nagging cold and I guess I will just take some loose running time before I start planning for running the half this fall.